THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER

TITLE: THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER

AUTHOR: CHARLES LAMBERT

Pages: 327

Date: 04/01/2014

Grade: 5

Details: Received from Exhibit A

             Through NetGalley

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

“Can she trust them? Can you?"

Helen is in a hotel room with her lover in Rome, when a gunman murders her husband, a high-level politician, less than a mile away.

Helen immediately finds herself both a suspect and suspicious of those around her – including her friends and her husband’s family, and her lover, Giacomo, an ex-terrorist with a new wife and a reinvented life.

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Over two years ago I read “Any Human Face” by Charles Lambert and was very impressed by this, at the time, new to me author. That book was the first one in a planned trilogy about the darker side of Rome. “The View from the Tower” is the second title in that trilogy and impressed me even more than the first one did.

Just like “Any Human Face” this is a literary thriller. Even though Helen’s husband is murdered at the start of the story the emphasis isn’t immediately on why or by whom he was killed. In fact, the first part of this book appears to concentrate on Helen and her feelings of guilt, loss, confusion and denial as she takes a closer look at her husband of 30 years and the relationship she had with him. Her feelings are complicated by the fact that for all of those 30 years Helen has had an affair with her husband’s best friend, Giacomo, the man she was visiting in his hotel room while her husband was being killed a short distance away.

As Helen struggles to understand her husband’s death and the extent to which she and the people she knows may have been responsible for it, she is forced to examine her own past and peel back the years of secrets and lies. It is while Helen takes a closer look at her life, the events that took place in the past and the feelings she has for the two men in her life that the reader and Helen get an understanding of what has happened and why events took the turn they did.

This is an intricate story. While on the surface it deals with politics, revolution, violence, murder and conspiracies this is also, or predominantly, a story about relationships, the secrets we keep from each other, no matter how close we imagine ourselves to be to our partner, and the shock of discovering after 30 or more years together that you really didn’t know the person you were sharing your life with - or they you - as well as you thought you did.

The descriptions of Helen’s struggles while coming to terms with her loss are heartbreakingly real. Those short moments of forgetting that the person who was such an integral part of your life is no longer there and the renewed pain of loss when you remember, are vivid and recognisable.  I also liked that there are no heroes and no real villains in this book. Actions taken for all the right reasons may still prove completely wrong under closer scrutiny. This is a brutally honest book. None of the characters are portrayed in a flattering light; all of them have their shortcomings and most of them are well aware of that fact. These characters are as real as the people we meet from day to day in our real lives. As a result it took me some time to take to any of them. By the end of the book though I had come to like most of these characters exactly because they were so brutally realistic.

This is a thriller in which the tension is insidious rather than obvious, an undertone rather than in the readers face. Even when the story appears to be only about Helen’s wildly varying emotions the tension is there, just under the surface. The reader is constantly aware that whatever is going on it won’t be something simple, and while it doesn’t appear that the narrative is steering us in the direction of a solution, that is exactly what is happening. Every conversation and action - both past and present - has significance even when they appear unrelated to the mystery of who committed the murder.

Charles Lambert has produced an intriguing thriller that kept me guessing until the very end; a story that isn’t always easy to read but very rewarding once it all comes together. This is an author who is not afraid to portray people as they are, warts and all, and manages to make his readers care about them even when their actions are questionable. I’m in awe of this author’s writing and eagerly awaiting the third book in this Rome trilogy. I couldn’t have wished for a better start to my reading year.

THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

TITLE: THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

AUTHOR: CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN

Pages: 278

Date: 06/10/2012

Grade: 5-

Details: no. 3 Barcelona Cycle

Library

Barcelona, December 1957 and Daniel Sempere (The Shadow of the Wind) is now married to the love of his life, Bea and they have a young son. Daniel works with his father in Sempere & Sons’ bookshop where they are being assisted by Fermin Romero de Torres who is engaged and getting ready for his wedding in the New Year. But Fermin appears to be troubled about something, and his worries only increase after a mysterious man visits the bookshop. Daniel is on his own when the man with the limp enters the bookshop and insists on buying “The Count of Monte Cristo” the most expensive book they have in stock. The buyer doesn’t take the book with him though. He insists that it is a present for Fermin and after inscribing a message in the book the man leaves again. The dedication saying: “For Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from among the dead and holds the key to the future. 13” doesn’t mean anything to Daniel but when Fermin reads it he gets even more worried.

The man and his message are linked to events which took place twenty years earlier, shortly after Franco won the civil war. These are events Fermin has never spoken about but now feels he has to share with Daniel. It is a story about imprisonment, a prison governor with literary delusions of grandeur and Fermin, caught between the governor, an imprisoned author named David Martin and a cell-mate who is refusing to die. These are events that are somehow linked to Daniel’s mother Isabella who died under suspicious circumstances around the same time; events that continue to cast a shadow into the present.

As Daniel slowly discovers how everything connects and manages to solve most, if not all, of Fermin’s problems, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books once again uncovers a written work, “The Angel’s Game” that might shed light on some of the mysteries but could just as easily lead to the start of a new adventure.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón has done it again. He has written an intriguing story in which nothing and nobody is quite what they seem. His plots are layered and linked in ways that the reader couldn’t even begin to imagine. Events from the two earlier books tie in with and help to explain what is happening in this story while the final sentences of this book indicate that the story hasn’t reached its finale yet.

The characters in this story are as vivid as they are unique. And more unique than most is Fermin. He is not a character that allows for an easy and short description. Fermin is complex, extravagant, out-going yet secretive and most of all, a loyal friend. Daniel is a far more straightforward character. He is a good-hearted young man and easy going unless he allows his emotions to rule his actions. Jealousy and a need to know the truth bring him into situations he should probably avoid. Situations that, while providing answers also pose more questions. And not all of those questions are answered in this book.

While this is a fluently written and easy to read book it also provides the reader with a lot to think about. At times it feels almost as if the reader has a philosophical book in their hands. Thoughts and actions are hidden behind and underneath the words that are on the page. Not everything is diverged but the things left unsaid are as important to the story as everything that has been spelled out for the reader. As a result I find that while it didn’t take me long at all to read this book, it will take me a long time before the story will leave my thoughts.

“The Prisoner of Heaven” is the third book in the Barcelona cycle by Zafón. All three books are connected to each other but there is no need to read them in any particular order. I would however say that there is probably a huge benefit to be had from reading all three of them in quick succession. Now that I have finished reading this book I feel I should probably go back and read “The Angels Game” again. The way that book is referenced in this one suggests that a lot of the present story has its origins in that one, and I really can’t remember that much of it. Having said that, the ending of this book seems to suggest that there is more to come and I think I will wait with a complete re-read until Zafón has written everything he is going to write about Barcelona, these characters and the mysteries in their lives.

Fear in the Sunlight

TITLE: FEAR IN THE SUNLIGHT

AUTHOR: NICOLA UPSON

Pages: 410

Date: 26/04/2012

Grade: 5+

Details: no. 4 Josephine Tey Mystery

            Received from BookGeeks

Own

“Fear of the dark is natural, we all have it, but fear in the sunlight where it is so unexpected – that is interesting”

Alfred Hitchock

London 1954, and Chief Inspector Archie Penrose, about to retire from Scotland Yard, is visited by an American investigator who wants to know about events that took place in the summer of 1936 when Josephine Tey celebrated her 40^th birthday in Portmeirion with Penrose and other close friends. Remembering is hard for Archie. Josephine has since died and having to look back means facing the pain of losing his close friend full on again. But the American has come with a surprising revelation about the events that took place during their stay there, and the curiosity that always made him such a good investigator takes Archie back to that shocking holiday in the beautiful surroundings in North Wales.

In 1936 celebrating her birthday with friends wasn’t Josephine’s only reason for staying in Portmeirion. She was also meeting Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma, to talk about selling the rights to her novel “A Shilling for Candles” to the already famous director.

During a dinner party Hitchcock decides to play a rather cruel game with his guests. A game that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth of those involved as well as those witnessing it and a game which will have horrible consequences.

The next day the bodies of two women, a leading actress and a local girl working in the resort, are found. Both have been murdered in horrible, although different, ways. When shortly after the discovery a third person dies, it appears that the case may have already solved itself. However Archie can’t help having niggling doubts about the solution and also has strong reservations about the way in which the case has been, barely, investigated. But since this is neither his case nor his jurisdiction, there is nothing he can do about it.

It is only in 1954 with the arrival of the mysterious American investigator that all the threads of what exactly was going on in 1936 come together and Archie at last finds the answers to all the questions. Answers that will lead him back to Portmeirion and to him making a decision he didn’t think he would ever be able to make.

This is the fourth book in a series featuring Josephine Tey and it is, once again, a wonderful book.

Yes, it is a murder mystery, but it is so much more. In fact, we are almost 200 pages into the story when the first murder occurs.

This is first and foremost a book about Josephine Tey and her life. We see her struggle with the decision whether or not to sell the rights to her book. And we are witness to her dilemma when it comes to her love life.

This is also a story about the relationships between people and the tangled webs those create. About the ways in which people hurt and fail each other, hide parts of themselves as well as the lengths people will go to in order to protect someone they are close to, despite knowing better.

This author has a way with words. Her sentences flow, her conversations are natural and her descriptions are vivid. She takes her time describing surroundings, moods and thoughts and yet she maintains the suspense that keeps the reader turning the pages.

While Upson obviously likes and admires her main character, she doesn’t idolise her. Tey, as described in this book is a human and rounded character. She’s is mostly a very likeable person to read about, but she has her less beautiful sides and there are moments that the reader would like to shake her and tell her exactly what she should be doing. All of this makes her very real and leaves me willing to believe that the Josephine Tey described on this pages is as close to the real thing as anyone could come. In fact, there were times when I had to remind myself that I was reading a work of fiction featuring real historical figures. There is such detail in the descriptions in this story that it is quite possible to believe that all of it really happened.

The fact that the author has part of this book set after Josephine’s death worries me a bit. Does this mean Upson does not intend to write anymore books in this series? I certainly hope that is not the case.

On the other hand, the mystery in this book is set in 1936 when Tey still had years to live, which should leave room for several other instalments. Books that will be fictional while also giving the reader an inside into Josephine Tey’s life. Books that I very much look forward to reading.

THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE

TITLE: THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE

AUTHOR: LENE KAABERBOL & AGNETE FRIIS

Pages: 313

Date: 11/04/2012

Grade: 4

Details: no. 1 Nina Borg

            Received from BookGeeks

Own

Nina Borg is a Red Cross nurse working in a refuge centre in Copenhagen where she tries to keep the vulnerable safe from those who would use and abuse them. A job that is often futile and frustrating, especially since Nina is in the habit of taking every case personally and getting involved with them on an emotional level.

She has just witnessed a young Ukrainian woman go back to her Danish fiancé who almost certainly abuses her, when she receives a call from her old friend Karin. Although contact with Karin has been limited for a few years now, Nina can’t say no when her friend asks her for a meeting because she needs help. When the two women meet Nina is given a token to a storage locker with the request to look after the contents of the locker. Karin is obviously deeply distressed and leaves Nina rather abruptly. Against her better judgment Nina picks up the token, goes to the locker and opens it only to find an old suitcase with a small, sleeping boy inside.

With no idea who the boy is, where he came from and who left him there Nina is at a loss to decide what to do. When a little later she makes eye-contact with a dangerous man looking very angry after finding nothing in that same locker, Nina knows she’s landed herself in a perilous situation, but still has no idea what that situation is.

Looking for answers Nina goes to find Karin, only to discover her brutally murdered. If she had any doubts before, Nina now knows for sure that both she and the little boy are in serious danger and decides to flee, leaving behind her husband and her own two children.

While Nina tries to stay ahead of the man who is hunting her and the boy, in Lithuania a desperate mother is trying to figure out what happened to Mikas, her young son, who was apparently taken by a couple while she was unconscious.

This is what I would call a literary thriller. While it has all the aspects a good thriller has – a mystery, scary villains, a vulnerable hero, violence and chases – the book also spends a lot of time inside the various characters giving the reader the opportunity to really get to understand them, their thought-processes and their motivation. And it manages to give the reader all this information without giving away too much too early in the story. As a result the reader only very gradually finds out exactly what is going on which is very gratifying and keeps them turning the pages.

How much a reader will enjoy this book will for a large part depend on how well they are able to buy into Nina Borg’s habit of throwing herself into other people’s causes while completely ignoring her own needs and those of her own family. While her way of dealing with the situation she found herself in made me want to shake her – I mean why didn’t she just go to the police with the little boy and why did she keep her husband in the dark- it may well ring true for others.

On the other hand, this is a very well written book. The pacing is almost perfect with descriptions and action alternating at exactly the right times.

Once again, as seems to be the case with most if not all of the Scandinavian thrillers I’ve been reading recently, there is a strong political context and message to this story which gives the book a bit more depth than most thrillers tend to have.